Cargo landing pad logistics are terrible

[myridium]

There are a few serious issues with the cargo landing pad / orbital drop logistics.

1. Set up a request for 150 iron ore in a cargo landing pad, and have an inserter that takes away the iron ore and puts it in a furnace. Now the cargo landing pad will make constants requests for tiny amounts of iron ore, which stops anything else from dropping down from orbit, even if you try to manually drop it using the GUI of the space platform.
2. There's no way to manually drop a partial stack from orbit. Why???

and finally, the most serious flaw which makes my playstyle nearly impossible for no good reason,

3. The cargo landing pad acts like a BUFFER CHEST.

To elaborate on the 3rd point:

When I have a personal logistics request for <100 x very expensive item>, then bots will go and grab that from the cargo landing pad, and then the cargo landing pad will request more from orbit to replace it. This causes valuable/heavy items to be dropped from orbit when I don't want them to be. I only want the cargo landing pad to act like a requester chest that grabs stuff from orbit. This stuff is too valuable to be availed to the entire logistics network, as a buffer chest does. There's no reason for the game to take control away from the player here. How to fix: just make the cargo landing pad act like a REQUESTER CHEST that can only take from orbit. Let the player shove everything into a buffer chest or whatever, if they want to. Or have a checkbox or something to change the logistic behaviour of the cargo landing pad. Don't take control away from the player and prevent them from playing the game how they want!

The Space Age expansion seems to have been designed in a way that massively underestimates the cost of putting things into orbit and/or assumes a very particular playstyle. You shouldn't take control away from the player and force things to be dropped from orbit when you don't want them to be. It doesn't matter if it makes sense in the late game: you should let the player design the factory how they want! Not only accomodate only a single playstyle! I guess this is a symptom of the devs playing the game with cheats or only testing the late game, or only testing the game with an 'in-crowd' who all play the same way or are afraid to criticize the game or something.

It's strange that point 3 made it past testing. Point 2 is also pretty baffling and shouldn't have made it past even a single play-tester without some kind of comment. Point 1 is annoying but it's possible to work around it with circuit conditions that ensure at least X items are requested at a time. Though it breaks the whole idea of automation to manually tune the stack amount so it's big enough not to clog the logistics.

[myridium]

Another few issues:

4. There's no way to insert "Processing unit", "Rocket fuel" or "Low density structure" into a rocket's cargo with inserters. (Because this just tries to build the rocket with these materials; it won't pack them in as cargo.) The only way around this is to use planetary logistics. Planetary logistics are mandatory to use the rockets, and I see no good reason for that.

5. There's no separation of space platform inventory between a 'cargo bay' and 'platform supplies'. Say I want to deliver "Firearm magazine" between planets. It will drop off all the firearm magazine, leaving the platform with none for the return journey (to shoot down asteroids). Likewise, I can't leave a reserved space for other platform supplies like solar panels, gun turrets, accumulators, etc. There are so many items that are effectively excluded as possible cargo for the space platform in this way.

6. There are bugs with the liquid inside the space platform engines. (Can't be bothered reproducing it to find out exactly the issue, but it's buggy.)

[myridium]

7. You can't do even simple things with the interplanetary logistics system because it uses a "pull" model only. To get something on to the space platform, the space platform must request it. However, there's no way to restrict that request to only a certain planet. So it'll pull that resource from every planet along the way! For example: say I want to deliver barrels of heavy oil from Fulgora to Nauvis. Then I need to make the space platform request barrels of heavy oil, but that means it'll also take barrels of heavy oil from Nauvis! This means I must avoid putting any item into the Nauvis logistics network which I want it to receive from a space platform. Am I missing something here, or is the Space Age expansion just incomplete...?

[Eiermann]

You can easily drop single stacks of items by using "shift + click" instead of "ctrl + click"

[mmmPI]

To get something on to the space platform, the space platform must request it. However, there's no way to restrict that request to only a certain planet

In game it is the exact opposite currently, all requests are by default restricted to come from only one planet. There's no way to request on "every" planet unless you make several requests, for each planet.

[ezylot]

1. Set up a request for 150 iron ore in a cargo landing pad, and have an inserter that takes away the iron ore and puts it in a furnace. Now the cargo landing pad will make constants requests for tiny amounts of iron ore, which stops anything else from dropping down from orbit, even if you try to manually drop it using the GUI of the space platform.

I think you can solve this by building Cargo Bays next to your Cargo landing pad. They can also accept drop pods allowing you to send quite the staggering amount of pods at once from the platform.

[Necandum]

I agree its a weakness that certain goods cannot be reserved by a platform for its own use, and requests cannot be set by the circuit network.

[Zaflis]

3. The cargo landing pad acts like a BUFFER CHEST.

To elaborate on the 3rd point:

When I have a personal logistics request for <100 x very expensive item>, then bots will go and grab that from the cargo landing pad, and then the cargo landing pad will request more from orbit to replace it. This causes valuable/heavy items to be dropped from orbit when I don't want them to be. I only want the cargo landing pad to act like a requester chest that grabs stuff from orbit. This stuff is too valuable to be availed to the entire logistics network, as a buffer chest does. There's no reason for the game to take control away from the player here. How to fix: just make the cargo landing pad act like a REQUESTER CHEST that can only take from orbit. Let the player shove everything into a buffer chest or whatever, if they want to. Or have a checkbox or something to change the logistic behaviour of the cargo landing pad. Don't take control away from the player and prevent them from playing the game how they want!

There are some workarounds to that, for example not having the landing pad within a logistics area at all. Or using stack inserters to move all dropped items to steel chests right as they appear in its inventory. They are likely faster than logi bots to get there.

But i can't imagine what is so valuable it shouldn't be exposed to global logistics network There isn't likely a requester chest asking for legendary mech suit to be placed in a recycler.

[DragoonGXG]

I mean no offense, lack sleep due to Factorio, and suck at writing. Please take my response with a grain of salt.

1) Request Queuing
You probably haven't experimented / read enough. If you want game play tips read or post in the Gameplay Help Thread.
IE: You are missing a critical piece of information which is hampering how you are understanding the mechanic.
*As others have also stated, a minimum threshold (full loads only) would be nice to have in certain cases.

2) Manual Partial Drop
Agreed, this sucks that you cant say send down half of something using 1 click + extra button press.
However, you can do this planet-side "manually" by telling the cargo pad on the planet you are orbiting that you want X of something.
Even if you do manually click to "drop" something, you are only adding it to the queuing "issue" mentioned in point 1).

3) New Space Logic System
I don't mean to be critical of how you play however, learning how the request logic works with the space platforms can't be over stated.
You are missing out on a lot, I'm still learning myself to be fair however, once you have a fully automated logistics network, the game basically plays itself while you free to then explore new planets.

4) Inserters vs Robots
I agree this does conflict with personal game play decisions. IE: limiting rockets to robot logistics only.
Unfortunately, I don't foresee this to be considered as there would be no way to specify otherwise with inserters.

5) Reserved Space Platform Inventory
I also see benefits with having a reservation, but only for other reasons.
The examples you provided only apply if you are taking damage from asteroids in which case this is totally a valid reason to have such a reservation.
Firearms magazines are an especially bad example for two reasons which I wont get into due to potential spoilers.

6) Fluid issues
That sucks to hear, if you can reproduce the bug definitely post a bug report if you haven't already.

7) New Space Logic System
As mmmPI stated, you have overlooked the request system logic in the Space Platform menu.
I'm to lazy to get another screenshot so look at below the highlighted section.

Planet Selector

Minimum Payload.png (335.25 KiB) Viewed 466 times

[myridium]

To get something on to the space platform, the space platform must request it. However, there's no way to restrict that request to only a certain planet

In game it is the exact opposite currently, all requests are by default restricted to come from only one planet. There's no way to request on "every" planet unless you make several requests, for each planet.

Thank you. I was doing something wrong here and didn't realise. I asked on a different forum and found out about this.

[myridium]

1. Set up a request for 150 iron ore in a cargo landing pad, and have an inserter that takes away the iron ore and puts it in a furnace. Now the cargo landing pad will make constants requests for tiny amounts of iron ore, which stops anything else from dropping down from orbit, even if you try to manually drop it using the GUI of the space platform.

I think you can solve this by building Cargo Bays next to your Cargo landing pad. They can also accept drop pods allowing you to send quite the staggering amount of pods at once from the platform.

Thanks. Would be nice if that were documented in the in-game pedia. But the issue is better solved imo with some behind-the-scenes logic to collect dropped items together into whole stacks when they drop down. (Or more than one stack at a time.)

[myridium]

I agree its a weakness that certain goods cannot be reserved by a platform for its own use, and requests cannot be set by the circuit network.

I think a nice solution would be to have two separate inventories for the space platform. One which acts like a storage container (e.g. not auto-sorting, solving another issue posted about the 'moving target' when you're trying to drop some cargo) and the other which acts similarly to a player inventory.

[myridium]

I mean no offense, lack sleep due to Factorio, and suck at writing. Please take my response with a grain of salt.

1) Request Queuing
You probably haven't experimented / read enough. If you want game play tips read or post in the Gameplay Help Thread.
IE: You are missing a critical piece of information which is hampering how you are understanding the mechanic.
*As others have also stated, a minimum threshold (full loads only) would be nice to have in certain cases.

2) Manual Partial Drop
Agreed, this sucks that you cant say send down half of something using 1 click + extra button press.
However, you can do this planet-side "manually" by telling the cargo pad on the planet you are orbiting that you want X of something.
Even if you do manually click to "drop" something, you are only adding it to the queuing "issue" mentioned in point 1).

3) New Space Logic System
I don't mean to be critical of how you play however, learning how the request logic works with the space platforms can't be over stated.
You are missing out on a lot, I'm still learning myself to be fair however, once you have a fully automated logistics network, the game basically plays itself while you free to then explore new planets.

4) Inserters vs Robots
I agree this does conflict with personal game play decisions. IE: limiting rockets to robot logistics only.
Unfortunately, I don't foresee this to be considered as there would be no way to specify otherwise with inserters.

5) Reserved Space Platform Inventory
I also see benefits with having a reservation, but only for other reasons.
The examples you provided only apply if you are taking damage from asteroids in which case this is totally a valid reason to have such a reservation.
Firearms magazines are an especially bad example for two reasons which I wont get into due to potential spoilers.

6) Fluid issues
That sucks to hear, if you can reproduce the bug definitely post a bug report if you haven't already.

7) New Space Logic System
As mmmPI stated, you have overlooked the request system logic in the Space Platform menu.
I'm to lazy to get another screenshot so look at below the highlighted section.

Planet Selector

Minimum Payload.png

Responses:

1) I read the in-game pedia. Nothing useful there. It seems to me that the drop pods don't 'queue' per se. I waited and waited, but the manually dropped cargo never actually dropped. The constant stream of iron ore prevented anything else from dropping. So it seemed. Maybe I didn't wait long enough. But a couple minutes should be enough.


2) Yeah, that's a workaround.

3) I understand how it works (well enough), it just doesn't work well.

4) It could be fixed easily and intuitively by splitting the silo into two separate rectangular objects, one where you insert the parts and the other where you insert the cargo.

5) There shouldn't be special exceptions on certain types of cargo. Let the player do "dumb" things if they want, like sending ammo or rare solar panels etc. It's bad design if the game only accomodates the player doing the "right thing".

6) The wrong fluid type can go into the two rocket inputs, and it stays there but is sorta 'invisible'. It acts counterintuitively and unlike other machines which just won't accept the wrong fluid in the wrong port.

7) Yeah thanks, I did overlook this. I know how to do it now.

[mmmPI]

3. The cargo landing pad acts like a BUFFER CHEST.

You state that as a problem but later you explain it's something you want somehow :

When I have a personal logistics request for <100 x very expensive item>, then bots will go and grab that from the cargo landing pad, and then the cargo landing pad will request more from orbit to replace it. This causes valuable/heavy items to be dropped from orbit when I don't want them to be.
I only want the cargo landing pad to act like a requester chest that grabs stuff from orbit. This stuff is too valuable to be availed to the entire logistics network, as a buffer chest does.

Note that this sort of contradict this to me :

5) There shouldn't be special exceptions on certain types of cargo. Let the player do "dumb" things if they want, like sending ammo or rare solar panels etc. It's bad design if the game only accomodates the player doing the "right thing".

It makes it hard to understand a"suggestion" precisely.

[myridium]

3. The cargo landing pad acts like a BUFFER CHEST.

You state that as a problem but later you explain it's something you want somehow :

You've misread my post. I want the silo to act like a requester chest that requests only from the space platform. I do not want it to act like a buffer chest as it currently does. I think it's a dumb choice for it to act the way it currently does, as it assumes that the player is happy for all logistics requests to be fulfilled from space. Getting things into space in the first place is expensive, so there should be more care around sandboxing the space requests and not just plugging them straight into the main logistics network.

Also there is the problem that others have pointed out: there's no way to reserve items on the space platform. So if I request 'rare solar panels' in my personal logistics, then they'll all be drained from whatever space platform is passing by, if that platform is allowed to drop any type of cargo to the planet!

[Necandum]

I agree its a weakness that certain goods cannot be reserved by a platform for its own use, and requests cannot be set by the circuit network.

I think a nice solution would be to have two separate inventories for the space platform. One which acts like a storage container (e.g. not auto-sorting, solving another issue posted about the 'moving target' when you're trying to drop some cargo) and the other which acts similarly to a player inventory.

Potentially, but that's a pretty big change. I was thinking you would have a menu to set minimum levels and only items above that level would be used to service planetside requests.

Plus, I'm suspicious the platform is not auto-sort per se, but rather that the contents of the platform are held in a dictionary like memory structure, to cope with the inventory potentially being super large. The flickering is just a UI issue, and could probably be solved by freezing/reserving the location of all icons while the inventory is open, or instead of displaying things 'on a shelf', just have one icon per item in the platform at the time of opening or since, and a number corresponding to the current quantity.

[myridium]

I agree its a weakness that certain goods cannot be reserved by a platform for its own use, and requests cannot be set by the circuit network.

I think a nice solution would be to have two separate inventories for the space platform. One which acts like a storage container (e.g. not auto-sorting, solving another issue posted about the 'moving target' when you're trying to drop some cargo) and the other which acts similarly to a player inventory.

Potentially, but that's a pretty big change. I was thinking you would have a menu to set minimum levels and only items above that level would be used to service planetside requests.

Plus, I'm suspicious the platform is not auto-sort per se, but rather that the contents of the platform are held in a dictionary like memory structure, to cope with the inventory potentially being super large. The flickering is just a UI issue, and could probably be solved by freezing/reserving the location of all icons while the inventory is open, or instead of displaying things 'on a shelf', just have one icon per item in the platform at the time of opening or since, and a number corresponding to the current quantity.

I think the logistics are pretty awful and a big change is warranted imo.

As for your suggestion: that sounds nice too, but then there's the issue of selecting how many items to drop. If you shift-click with your suggestion, then ALL of a given item will drop, not just one stack! (Also, I think from a game design perspective, the programming is just a tool, and should not be part of the design process!)

[Necandum]

I agree its a weakness that certain goods cannot be reserved by a platform for its own use, and requests cannot be set by the circuit network.

I think a nice solution would be to have two separate inventories for the space platform. One which acts like a storage container (e.g. not auto-sorting, solving another issue posted about the 'moving target' when you're trying to drop some cargo) and the other which acts similarly to a player inventory.

Potentially, but that's a pretty big change. I was thinking you would have a menu to set minimum levels and only items above that level would be used to service planetside requests.

Plus, I'm suspicious the platform is not auto-sort per se, but rather that the contents of the platform are held in a dictionary like memory structure, to cope with the inventory potentially being super large. The flickering is just a UI issue, and could probably be solved by freezing/reserving the location of all icons while the inventory is open, or instead of displaying things 'on a shelf', just have one icon per item in the platform at the time of opening or since, and a number corresponding to the current quantity.

I think the logistics are pretty awful and a big change is warranted imo.

As for your suggestion: that sounds nice too, but then there's the issue of selecting how many items to drop. If you shift-click with your suggestion, then ALL of a given item will drop, not just one stack! (Also, I think from a game design perspective, the programming is just a tool, and should not be part of the design process!)

Shift click would still just queue up one stack to be dropped? That's a very easy behaviour to modify.
And disagree, programming has to be part of the design. Its like saying engineering shouldn't be part of building design.

[mmmPI]

You've misread my post. I want the silo to act like a requester chest that requests only from the space platform. I do not want it to act like a buffer chest as it currently does. I think it's a dumb choice for it to act the way it currently does, as it assumes that the player is happy for all logistics requests to be fulfilled from space. Getting things into space in the first place is expensive, so there should be more care around sandboxing the space requests and not just plugging them straight into the main logistics network.

Also there is the problem that others have pointed out: there's no way to reserve items on the space platform. So if I request 'rare solar panels' in my personal logistics, then they'll all be drained from whatever space platform is passing by, if that platform is allowed to drop any type of cargo to the planet!

You may not have understood what i meant

Getting things into space is not expensive imo. It's a good thing that robots bring me things from space, like cliffs explosives, foundries, big mining drill , electromagnetic plant and so on. If you made a logisitic request for something like "rare solar pannel" and the robots don't bring them to you but instead put them "everywhere in the network" it's on you, it's because you made too many requests for an item that you also yourself consider precious and expensive and don't want to be distributed everywhere.

A space platform doesn't drop to a planet something that it also request from that planet, so there is no risks for something like rare solar pannel to be sent to nauvis orbit back and forth. If you request rare solar pannel in nauvis and "any other platform from space" drop it , because they didn't get them from Nauvis : It's a good thing, that's how it works when you use several platform to carry science pack.

Your suggestion on the other hand would break the game and mostly kills anyway to do science at large scale. Since robots wouldn't be able to pick up science packs from the landing pad they would have to all be transfered out of the landing pad with inserter, putting a very low limit on the transfer rate.